Care Quality Commission takes action to protect people living at Aaron Lodge Care Home

09/08/2016

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has put Aaron Lodge Care Home, Liverpool into special measures to protect people using this service, after rating them as Inadequate following inspections in May and June this year.

Aaron Lodge is a dementia care residential home which is located close to Liverpool city centre. The home is registered to accommodate 48 people and at the time of the inspection, there were 48 people living at the home

This service was previously inspected in November last year and was placed into special measures for not meeting regulations. It will remain in special measures after the most recent unannounced inspection at Aaron Lodge Care home has not sufficiently improved to protect people using this service. CQC found that there was not enough improvement to take the provider out of 'special measures' and CQC is now considering the appropriate regulatory response.

Under CQC's new programme of inspections, all adult social care services are given a rating to help people choose care. They ask five questions, are services; safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Overall, Aaron Lodge Care Home has been rated as Inadequate. The full report from the inspection can be found here on the CQC website: http://www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-145585812.

At their most recent inspection they found the service remained in breach of the same regulations apart from medicine, as were evident on the last inspection in November 2015; person centred care, dignity and respect and medicines, hydration and nutrition, governance and staffing. In addition inspectors also found them to be in breach of regulations in relation to the need for consent and safeguarding service users at the most recent inspection.

The service was not always safe and people were at risk of harm to their health and well-being due to poor systems of communication, under reporting of incidents and not having sufficient numbers of staff. Actions stated as being required in people's care plans were not always followed which put them at further risk of harm.

Inspectors observed people at various times of the day and found the mornings and lunch times were more pressured than other times of the day for staff to meet people's care needs. This had not been factored into the staffing levels within the care home and the impact of this for people was that they were not being supported to go to the toilet in a timely manner. People were not receiving drinks throughout the day and they were not being supported to eat and drink when they were provided with sustenance on a table in front of them.

A recommendation was made from the last inspection in November 2015 regarding improvements needed to the design and decoration within the care home to meet the needs of people with dementia. CQC found dementia friendly knitted hand muffs had been made but were not yet used and the bathroom doors had signage which was a different colour to stand out for people but no other improvements had been made. The registered manager told us that they had not sought the advice of someone with the skills in dementia adaptation/design other than their own in-house painter and decorator who decorates all care homes owned by New Century Care.

Debbie Westhead, Deputy Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care in the North, said: "People are entitled to services which provide safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care. We found that the care provided at Aaron Lodge Care Home fell a long way short of what we expect services to provide, which is why we have intervened to keep people using this service safe. Our first instinct is to make sure the service improves, but we must also take action to protect people when we are worried about their safety."

If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate for any key question or overall, CQC will not hesitate to take further enforcement action.

Do you have concerns about care that you or a loved one are receiving?

Recent

Hospital A&E departments all around the country have been in the news this winter. Along with 8 other local Healthwatch we had planned co-ordinated visits to A&E departments across Merseyside and Cheshire in January to gather patients' experiences of using A&E during these periods of...

You may remember the local NHS is reviewing how Orthopaedic and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) services provided by Aintree University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust are provided. Between July and September 2017 they asked people...